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Friday and Saturday, June 26 and 27, 2015
English hosts, he was unable to make any progress on the score until he arrived back
home in Berlin. The recovery time was not wasted, however. Mendelssohn, like Mozart,
largely finished his compositions in his head before he committed them to paper, so
the job of writing them down was more mechanical than creative. Mendelssohn’s usual
method was to write out the bass line completely for a section and then go back to
fill in the other parts above it. For this Symphony, however, he decided to stretch his
faculties to the limit and write the entire work, measure-by-measure, directly into full
score. Eduard Devrient, the German theater historian, was astonished by the process:
“This was a gigantic effort of memory, to fit in each detail, each doubling of parts,
each solo effect bar-wise, like an immense mosaic. It was wonderful to watch the black
column slowly advance upon the blank music paper. Felix said it was so great an effort
that he would never do it again; he discontinued the process after the first movement
of the Symphony. It has proved his power, however, mentally to elaborate a work in its
minutest details.” Such reports suggest that Mendelssohn may have been the most
naturally gifted musician of the 19th century. The work was completed in April 1830.
The “Reformation” Symphony opens with a solemn introduction in D major
whose harmonic suspensions recall the style of Renaissance polyphony. The
“Dresden Amen” (a chord formula long associated with the Lutheran service at the
Court Church in Dresden, where it was used as a response to the sermon to symbolize
the hovering of the spirit of the Holy Ghost) is suspended high in the strings to close the
introduction. The body of the movement (in D Minor) commences with the quickening
of the tempo and the announcement of the main theme, a bold melody begun with
the rising leap of a fifth. A good deal of contrapuntal working-out ensues before the
violins present the second theme, more lyrical in nature than the first but still unsettled in
character. The agitated development section is joined to the recapitulation by another
presentation of the “Dresden Amen.” The movement’s stormy countenance and
minor tonality are maintained throughout. The second movement is a dance-like
scherzo in buoyant triple meter; its central trio is a sweet melody for oboe duet.
The introspective third movement is like a quiet prayer that serves as a preface to
the finale. A richly harmonized presentation by the winds of Luther’s great chorale
Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott
(“
A Mighty Fortress is our God
”) begins the finale.
The tempo quickens and fragments of the tune are woven with new thematic
material. The movement is swept along to its closing pages, a powerful re-statement of
Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott
by the full orchestra.
QUICKENING
(1998)
Music by James MacMillan (born in 1959)
Words by Michael Symmons Roberts
(born in 1963)
Macmillan’s
Quickening
is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two
oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons,
four horns, four trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani,
percussion, harp, piano, celesta, organ and strings. The
performance time is 48 minutes. This is the first performance of
this work by the Grant Park Orchestra.
Scottish composer James MacMillan, born in Kilwinning, Ayrshire on July 16, 1959,
was educated at the University of Edinburgh (B.Mus., 1981) and the University of
Durham (Ph.D., 1987), where his principal teacher was John Casken. After working
as a lecturer at Manchester University from 1986 to 1988, MacMillan returned to
Scotland, where he has since fulfilled numerous important commissions and taught
